Civilian casualties in Ukraine up sharply in 2025, UN monitor says

An increase in the use of long-range weapons by Russia has led to more casualties in Ukraine, according to a United Nations monitor.

Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, as casualties soared amid flaring hostilities along the front line and Russia’s expanded use of long-range weapons, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said.

In a report published on Monday, the UN monitor said that “the total civilian casualties in Ukraine in 2025 reached at least 2,514 killed and 12,142 injured, which is a 31 percent increase compared to 2024 … and a 70 percent increase compared to 2023”.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Ukraine calls on allies to raise pressure as Russia fires Oreshnik missile
• list 2 of 3Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,416
• list 3 of 3Russia hits Ukraine with Oreshnik hypersonic missile: Why it matters

The vast majority ⁠of the casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war that were verified by the watchdog occurred in Ukrainian government-controlled territory from attacks launched by Russian armed ​forces, the report found.

Increased efforts ‍by Russian armed forces to capture territory in 2025 resulted in the killing and injuring of civilians, destruction of vital infrastructure, halting of essential services and new waves of displacement in front-line areas, the monitor said.

Almost two-thirds of all casualties last ‍year occurred in front-line ⁠areas, with older people particularly affected as they remained in their villages. Civilian casualties caused by short-range drones also increased sharply, it added.

“[But our] monitoring shows that this rise was driven not only by intensified hostilities along the front line, but also by the expanded use of long-range weapons, which exposed civilians across the country to heightened risk,” Danielle Bell, head of the UN monitoring mission, said in a media release attached to the report.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been injured or killed in Europe’s ​deadliest war since World War II, although neither side releases full figures.

The UN has verified almost 15,000 civilian deaths, it said in the report, but added that the “actual extent of civilian harm … is likely considerably higher” since it is impossible to verify many cases and there is no access to areas that have come under Russian occupation.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians were killed in 2022, the war’s first year, during a long Russian siege of the port of Mariupol and assaults on cities before the front line hardened in place.

Since then, Moscow has continued to use missiles and drones to strike cities across Ukraine. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, but says its attacks on Ukrainian civil infrastructure are justified because it hinders the war effort.

Ukraine also targets civil infrastructure in Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, though on a far smaller scale.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the UN monitor noted that Russian authorities reported that attacks by Ukrainian armed forces killed 253 civilians and injured 1,872 in the Russian Federation last year. Due to a lack of access and limited publicly available information, the watchdog could not verify these numbers, it added.

In February, the war will enter its fifth year. But the issue of territorial concessions remains a major sticking point.

Last November, United States President Donald Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine that involved Kyiv ceding not only large amounts of land that Russia has occupied during nearly four years of war, but also some territory that Kyiv’s forces currently control.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has, however, stated on numerous occasions that this is unacceptable to Ukraine.

US-led diplomatic attempts to end the war have also currently stalled, with Russia last week rejecting a draft plan that would see European countries deploy soldiers in Ukraine once the war ends.